On Hold

In yet another setback for Sony's ballyhooed Blu-ray hi-def video technology, Sony and Pioneer have pushed back their delivery dates for the first dedicated players.

In yet another setback for Sony's ballyhooed Blu-ray hi-def video technology, Sony and Pioneer have pushed back their delivery dates for the first dedicated players. Sony's BDP-S1 and Pioneer's BDP-HD1 had been due to arrive in June, but now Sony has delayed its launch until mid-August and Pioneer is aiming for September.

Meanwhile, HD DVD players are already on the market, with a growing number of film titles available for them. "We decided to hold off for a bit just to make sure everything works well relative to all the various studios that are planning to ship titles," says Andy Parsons, VP of the industrial solutions business group at Pioneer. At press time Samsung finally announced the release of its $1,000 BD-P1000 to retailersthe first Blu-ray player out there.